Position in chronology
OSP 2, 168
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from Nippur, in the Old Akkadian period (c. 2300 BCE), recording disbursements of barley and onions to named individuals. Each entry gives a quantity, a recipient (often identified by his father's name or his title), and in one case the official responsible for the transaction. It is a scrap of the everyday bookkeeping of a temple or palace household, showing how foodstuffs like onions and garlic-type vegetables were counted in strings and bundles and handed out alongside grain rations.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The top of the record is gone. What survives is a list of handouts: a son of the chief cupbearer received something now lost; Aba-Enlil got 2 barig of barley; someone received 30 bundles of onions on strings; Dada, son of Lugal-ša, got 4 ban of sikil-onions, with Dada himself named as the official in charge; another lost recipient, a son of Puzur-..., got 180 bundles of onions; Šu-ilīsu received 4 ban and Lu-girgilu 3 ban; a further entry of 6 or so items is too damaged to read. After a gap, the record ends by naming a man called ...-zi, the household overseer, presumably as the official who authorised the distribution.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] [...] son of the chief cupbearer (sagi-[gal]); 2 barig (barley): Aba-Enlil; 30 (bundles of) onions, [...] strings [...]; 4 ban (of) sikil-onions: Da[da], son of Lugal-[ša]; Dada [(was) the responsible official (maškim)]; 180 (bundles of) onions, [... strings]; [...] son of Puzur-[...]; 4 ban: Šu-ilī-[su]; 3 ban: Lu-girgi-[lu]; 6(?) ... [...] [...] [...]-zi, the overseer of the household (ugula-e2).
Our translation engine — Fable 5.1. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] dumu sagi#-[gal] 2(barig@c) a-ba-en-lil2 3(u) szum2 sa x [...] 4(ban2@c) szum2-sikil da#-[da] dumu lugal#-[sza3] da-da# [maszkim-bi] 3(gesz2) szum2 [sa ...] dumu puzur4-[...] 4(ban2@c) szu-i3-li2-[su] 3(ban2@c)# lu2#-gir14#-gi4#-[lu2] 6(disz)? x x [...] [...] [...]-zi ugula-e2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 2, 168. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P216322) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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